Free Cuba from all oppression

By Chris Pena

The recent downing of two U.S. civilian planes by Cuba has once again
put the American government at odds with one of the last bastions of
communism in the world.

The United States has had an interesting relationship with Cuba
throughout this century. First it liberated the island from the Spaniards,
then granted it its independence before it supported the dictatorship of
Batista and opposed Castro's communism.

Sunday's transgression by the Cuban government was tragic and
controversial, but it also provided me an opportunity to analyze the status
of Cuba's citizens, both at home and abroad.

As I sat there in amazement watching news reports on CNN, it seemed
that all the interviewees from Little Havana were white, Cuban exiles.

That nearly insignificant observation set my liberal mind in
motion.

For the record, I'm not a communist.

Yet I started realizing that the people who lost the most in the Cuban
communist revolution were the ones currently exiled in the United States.
They were the only ones able to afford to leave -- the poor had no
choice.

The revolution accomplished very little for Cuba's poor. They're still
living under a dictator, and this one has not made life any better for them
than before.

The only difference between Castro and Batista is that elitism is less
apparent in Cuba today.

Again, I noticed there aren't many non-white Cubans in this country.
Most are back home because the white ruling class of the past treated them
like plantation slaves.

Brothers for Freedom, the group who flies the planes that were shot
down, and their exiled brethren want to topple Castro's government. But
look closely, what are their true intentions?

I am in favor of deposing the communist Castro, but what's the price?
What Cuba needs is to take care of its people.

If the exiles return to power, the situation will surely get worse for
Cuba's citizens. The island country will degenerate into the atrocities of
the past. I doubt that, all of the sudden, the former established elite
will return to their homeland and become altruists.

What Cuba needs desperately is democracy.

The people now in Cuba, not those in Miami, should organize and fight
for their natural right of self-determination.

If the country's poor succeed in toppling communism, you can be sure
their lives will continue to be miserable for a longer period of time.

But they will have the best of both worlds: They'll have rid themselves
of the land-owning elite who exploited them for more than 50 years, and
they will set themselves on a road to democracy and abandon the awful
experiment of communism.